


akira paints his nails

by stardewmtns



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Crushes, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, akira flirting, angst if you squint, lowkey they love each other, painting nails, when ur crushing but u also kinda have to kill the guy?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-13 21:04:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13578915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardewmtns/pseuds/stardewmtns
Summary: in which Akechi is a genius and yet is somehow unaware that nail polish is a thing (or maybe is in denial that Akira has such pretty hands).





	akira paints his nails

**Author's Note:**

> hi this is unedited. i have no idea what happened here. dont @ me i dont know why akechi wouldnt know what nail polish is. also the punctuation or spacing might be weird ig because i copied and pasted from google docs

For a while now, well, as long as Akechi has known Kurusu, he has observed something... _odd_ , that no one else appears to be bothered by. Out of politeness, Akechi has never inquired, despite his growing curiosity. Kurusu himself was quite the character, quite _odd;_ not as eccentric as Yusuke, but he was on that spectrum.

Akechi envied how Kurusu could do anything and act so cool about it. Kurusu had an _air_ about him that Akechi found both incredibly intoxicating and utterly frustrating. Akechi had worked for years to achieve the reputation he had, and in barely a year Kurusu was awarded the same level of popularity. It was repulsing to admit.  
  
This is why Akechi is not surprised that no one has questioned Kurusu about this odd _thing._ When someone like Kurusu, an undeniable leader, oozes confidence with everything he does, it’s natural that no one would try to confront him. Leaders trump followers.

Thankfully, Akechi’s job is to confront and question leaders, _criminals_ , like Kurusu. He just never found the right moment to ask.

Picking out a moment is crucial, especially when involving someone like the leader of the Phantom Thieves. Kurusu has a talent for, in lighter terms, masquerading as anyone he pleases. Depending on who he is with, he tailors his response to their liking, deceiving them into favoring him. Getting an honest answer out of him, even for something like this, is tricky. Akechi has waited to strike. His curiosity has peaked the point that resolution is necessary.

His nails.

The odd thing Akechi has noticed is Kurusu’s nails. He has never seen something so bizarre. Kurusu’s nails _change color_. The first time he encountered him, they were red. The next time, blue. The time after that, _pink_. And no one says a thing! But the odd thing is, sometimes they even have _designs_ or a _sparkle_ to them. Even in the Metaverse! Plus, it doesn’t help the fact that Kurusu’s fingers are so long and nimble, and that his hands are so _soft—_

Well, Akechi doesn’t quite _know_ if they’re soft. He just imagines them to be.

Anyways, Akechi deducted that the best time would be when he is alone with Kurusu. That way, he doesn’t embarrass himself if the answer is something simple. Additionally, Akechi is hoping to get as honest as an answer he can; despite Kurusu swearing honesty towards him, Akechi is more than skeptical, of course. As he said before, honesty is tricky. Plus, nothing Kurusu has done in recent months have been honest.

… That being said, most of what Kurusu says to him privately have not been lies, from what he can deduce. He’s a very strange boy.

Lost in thought, Akechi purses his lips as his hand hovers above the door handle to Cafe Leblanc. Possibly, Kurusu made him that promise because of who he is; is it just another mask he has put on in order to sway Akechi to like him? Was he an honest, promise-keeping man in truth? He had no idea. He will never know. That thought frightened him. Admittedly, contrary to Akechi’s opinion on the Phantom Thieves and Kurusu himself, he… enjoys spending time with Kurusu. Lately, they have fallen into a routine of spending the evening together in the little cafe. Akechi has managed to keep his distance, trying to convince himself that he’s there to observe Kurusu further, but even during simple conversing, he has found joy in time with Kurusu. He cannot offer an explanation for it; he’s utterly ashamed that he would even admit that to himself in the first place. Friends close, enemies closer?

A raindrop on his nose broke him from his thoughts. Worried about how long he’s been idling outside, he ventures inwards. Instantly, he is hit with a nutty, comforting aroma. While Akechi has never known what a home feels or smells like, he’d like to imagine it smells like this: warm, inviting. He basks in the scent for just a moment before closing his umbrella and setting it down. He hears a murmur, _“Oi, your friend is here,”_ and looks up to meet Sojiro-san’s aging but sharp stare. He smiles politely and nods in a show of respect. Sojiro-san smiles back, and continues cleaning up for the night. 

The best thing about Akechi arriving in the evenings to this quaint cafe is that his schedule allows him to be there right before closing time. The cafe seldom has customers at this hour; Akechi can indulge in the peace and quiet. Well, what peace and quiet he _can_ indulge in before Kurusu’s loud mouth opens. That boy never shuts up; there’s always something on his mind, something to say. Akechi would appreciate it if Kurusu kept some of what he says to himself.

Speaking of, Akechi spots the leader of the Phantom Thieves himself, sitting on a bar stool, hunched over something obscured from his vision. In his lap is Morgana, curled up.

Despite the audible cues that Akechi has arrived, Kurusu does not look up from whatever he’s doing. Akechi finds this particularly strange. More often than not, Kurusu is the first one to greet him. In fact, he’s almost always there to take his coat, besides on rare occasions where Akechi is there first (“Honey, I’m home!” he one day exclaimed to Akechi’s horror).

Odd.

Akechi bites his bottom lip, momentarily pondering whether to walk over or not. He sighs, brushes off his clothes (and insecurities), and walks over. “Good evening, Kurusu,” he says, quietly, not wanting to disturb whatever the boy was currently doing. He plasters on a smile for affect, but there is still no reply. As he get closer to see what he was focusing so hard on, he gasps.

“K-Kurusu! What are you doing to your hands?!”

The sudden outburst is what grabs Kurusu’s attention, his head snapping to the side. He feels Morgana twitch in his lap. He stares at Akechi, confused. “Uh… say that to me again?” His back straightens up as he puts the _ink brush_ into its bottle.

“Your… your fingernails…” Akechi exclaims in horror, “Are you painting over them with _ink?”_

Akira blinks. Once. Twice. He lets what Akechi is saying sink in. Then he laughs.

He laughs hard.

He laughs so hard that he nearly slips out of his seat, and Morgana was shaken awake. He grasps the counter with one hand to steady himself as he laughs loudly, cutting through the otherwise quiet atmosphere.

Goro Akechi is absolutely appalled. He stares, frozen, both unsure of _why_ Kurusu thinks that this is so funny and why Sojiro-san turned a blind eye to… _t_ _his!_ Have they all been looking away from this?!

Akechi impatiently waits for Akira to simmer down, tapping his foot on the floor. He crosses his arms over his chest, now self-conscious over how long Akira has been laughing. “What is just _so_ hilarious?”

“Oh, oh God, Goro, I—I don’t even know what to say. Oh my God,” he snickers, unable to continue talking for another couple minutes. When he finally calms down, he wipes his eyes with the back on his hand. Akechi tries to ignore Kurusu using his first name. “Have you—have you never heard of nail polish?” He asks.

Akechi is dumbfounded. As baffled as he is, he tries to recover quickly. “Nail—? Of course I have,” a fumbling lie. “But.. why are _you_ putting it on?”

“Why’s it so weird for me to wear nail polish?” Akira contests. Akechi feels his face get hotter by the second. Akira is staring at him smugly, a sly smirk taking form. He frantically tries to defend himself. “I-I don’t think it’s _weird!_ It’s not—not weird, at all, I’m just confused as to why… you…”

“Goro,” Akira smiles. Akechi couldn’t tell whether Kurusu was doing this on purpose or not. “I’m going to show you something amazing,” he reaches for Akechi’s arms, then recoils. “Are you okay with taking off your gloves?” He looks at Akechi’s crossed arms. Akechi stares at Akira skeptically. He’s nearly taken aback at how concerned Akira acts. It almost seemed genuine.

“... Alright,” he agrees tentatively, slipping off his gloves and neatly placing them on the counter. “Now wh—h-hey!”

Akira takes his hand, holding it daintily as if Akechi was a real prince, and pulls it closer to him. “Try not to move that much. I’ve trained my hand to be super steady, but I’ve never done this to anyone else, so…” he trails off, plucking the brush out of the bottle and sliding it up the side to remove excess polish. With a precision, he drags the brush from the cuticle of his nail bed to the tip.

The first thing Akechi experiences is the smell. Chemicals. It was a very strong odor, enough for him to make a face in disgust. Akira saw out of his peripheral. He snorts, tilting his head up to reach Akechi’s eyes. “Yeah, it kinda hits you, doesn’t it?”

“It’s very… strong,” Akechi coughs.

“Mhm. You’ll get used to it,” Akira chuckles, his eyes focusing back onto Akechi’s hand. He was so careful, coating the nail completely and barely getting any polish on the skin around Akechi’s nails. It was obvious Akira has been doing this for a long time. He was very skilled. Akechi couldn't help but observe that were was hardly a tremor in his hand. Once he finished coating the first nail, Akechi admires the handiwork as the black polish shines against the cafe’s warm lighting.

They were silent for a while. Akira's steady hand moved from Akechi's nails to the bottle, back and forth.

Akechi tried his best not to flinch, though it was hard to stand still for so long. His hand felt tingly.

Akira’s lips morphed into a straight line. His brows furrowed as he concentrated. It was endearing how absorbed Kurusu was into this.

Akechi couldn’t help but blush. For some reason, it felt so _intimate_. He had half a brain to not pull his hand away. No one has ever done this to him before. He never lets anyone. For someone to pamper him like this felt… like something he couldn’t describe. His chest hurt in a way he has never experienced. It wasn’t… unwanted, just unfamiliar.

Akechi was a genius; there was nothing that was too much of a challenge to him. But, _human interaction_ … genuine feelings, real relationships… he was a little less than a fool. He had no idea what to feel, what to say, what to act like. The only way he survived his fans, his countless amounts of interviews and publicity was through copying other people. He watched them, and mimicked appropriately. Sometimes, he wondered if he was a robot. That would make a lot more sense than his life does now.

“Kurusu,” he says out of impulse. Kurusu cuts him off.

“Akira,” he corrects, and he stares at Akechi again. Akechi gulps. Everything about this rang alarm bells. He felt the need to run.

He didn’t. His feet were glued to the floor.

“Akira,” he mumbles hurriedly, embarrassed by the mere notion of addressing him by his first name. “I can’t help but notice how proficient you are at this. When did you start?”

Akira smiles, dipping the brush back into the nail polish bottle. “Oh, a long time ago. My mom… she paints her nails all the time. Goes to get manicures and acrylic nails and stuff. She brought me to a nail salon with her one day and… I just sort of… liked it? She got me a whole kit. Once, I spilled some nail polish all over the floor. I got some glitter polish in my eye, too,” he snickers. “But my dad didn’t like me wearing nail polish. Said it wasn’t manly. He told my mom she was trying to force me to become a girl because she always wanted a daughter and not a son... I dunno. After that, it was kind of a ‘fuck you’ to him, I guess,” he looks off to the side for a while, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Akechi could tell it was painful for Akira to talk about his parents.

“Ah,” Goro mumbles unintelligibly. What could he say to that?

After some uncomfortable silence, Akira speaks again: “But it’s not just teenage rebellion. I really like it,” he smiles and motions for Akechi’s other hand. Gingerly, Goro displays his hand for Akira.

Akira finishes off Goro’s other hand. Once he’s done, he grins. “Okay, now we have to wait for them to dry. Try not to touch your nails to anything. That means no gloves. Then, we put top coat on,” he explains. Akechi stares at his nails, stretching his fingers out. He didn't mind not wearing his gloves for a while; a part of him wanted to show off what a nice job Kurusu did. He had an upcoming interview, so...

“Top coat?”

“It protects the nail polish from, like, chipping the next day. I didn’t put base coat on, but we can do that next time,” he shrugs, sliding off his stool. “Coffee while we wait? Or curry?”

“Just coffee, please,” Akechi smiles politely, ignoring the butterflies in his stomach. _Next time_ rang in his head. Akira wanted to do this again? Would this become regular? Normal? He more he thought about it, the more he enjoyed the idea. He sits on the stool where Akira once sat.

While Akira prepares coffee for them both, it is then that Akechi realizes that there is no one in the cafe but them. Sojiro-san had apparently left without them knowing. Akechi apparently got to wrapped up in…. whatever that was.

“How long does the polish stay on?” Akechi inquires, still enamoured by the sight of his nails. They wouldn’t match his Metaverse outfit, but Akechi felt like the black color suited him.

“Oh, well, depends, I guess. They can chip after a couple days, but the polish should stay on for a week or two. And before you ask, it’s completely safe,” he smirks, sliding a cup to Akechi.

“Ah,” Akechi murmurs thoughtfully, delicately picking up his cup and sipping. Picking up the cup felt strange with nail polish on. He had an automatic impulse to be extremely careful. He hoped he wouldn’t feel like this the whole time the polish was on.

The coffee was hot—it burned his tongue, but he hardly grimaced.

As Akechi sipped more on his coffee, he felt eyes observing him. Akira was looking at him as if he was trying to decipher a hard math problem. Akechi’s heart jumped into his throat and he refused to look up.  _What is this? What is this? What is this?_

The domesticity between Goro and Akira would have to end soon. There would be no more coffee, no more studying, no more talking and no more painting nails. Akechi knew that he was making a mistake. Getting close to a Phantom Thieve, someone he had to _kill_ , would do nothing other than bring trouble. Enjoying time with Akira, opening up to Akira, maybe even _liking_ Akira was all a misguided mistake as well as a cruel joke. It makes his stomach hurt.

“—soft,” Akira muses. Akechi didn’t catch the first part, too absorbed with the feeling of impending doom.

“I’m—I’m sorry, what did you say?” Akechi forces himself to look up, puts on a smile. He wonders if Akira could see how fake it was.

If he knew, he didn’t mention it.

“Your hands,” Akira murmurs, slipping his hand over Goro’s. Akechi vaguely wonders whether the polish was dry by now. Akira might get polish on his hands.

“They’re soft. I didn’t… uh, expect it.” There was a strange sense of peace. Despite the growing turmoil churning in Akechi’s mind, feeling Akira’s warm hand over his felt calming. He never guessed that he would be in this position.

“Yours aren’t,” Akechi states bluntly. Not how he’d imagined them. Akira chuckles. “Yeah. Maybe it’s all the training Ryuji and I do.”

“Hm. Maybe.”

More silence. Sometimes, Akechi frets over the possibility that Akira _knows_ what he’s planning. He worries that Akira will get to him first, maybe change his heart. Did he have a palace? He tried coming up with keywords in his MetaNav app, but nothing came up. Would Akechi feel it? How would Shido react to Akechi failing his mission? It would be incredibly easy to dispose of him. Shido had all the power, influence. No one would know that Goro Akechi even existed.

He knows for a fact that Akira is using him, too, like Shido and everyone else. But Akira is different. The line between genuine caring and intel gathering is blurred with Akira. It scares him.

He wants to ask. He has the sudden impulse. What would Akira say? What would he think?

_“I’m going to kill you. I think I like you. I enjoy spending time with you. Do you like me too? Are you using me? What is your game?”_

He doesn’t. He has more self control than that. But the urge is still there. His mouth twitches.

“I—” He finally blurts out. He quickly corrects himself. “It’s getting late. Tomorrow is a school day, yes?”

Akira doesn’t move. He smiles instead. “You can just stay the night? Sojiro will be fine with it, as long as we don’t cause trouble for him in the morning. Stay, please. You can have the futon.”

It almost sounds like a plea. He’s begging him to stay. Is this a test?

“Akira—” He catches himself. “Kurusu-kun. Has the polish dried yet?”

“Goro,” Akira smiles, like he was challenging him. Akechi didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. “I think it has by now. Want to go to bed?”

Akechi blushes. He weighs his options. He decides.

“Yes."

Akira beams, hums happily in response. Akechi sat there, dazed, as Akira swipes away his cup and puts it in the sink. He’d clean it in the morning, probably.

Akira takes Goro’s hand again. The polish was dry. Did Akira forget about the top coat?

Maybe not, because he snags the polishes as he guides Akechi to the attic. It was dark and musty, like usually. But it felt lived in. Comfortable. Much better than anywhere Akechi has stayed.

“I’m sorry,” Akira starts as he brings Akechi to the futon. He sits down next to him. “I forgot to put on top coat. Can you stay up a little longer?” Akechi realized that he did this on purpose. Akira was strangely intentional. His actions were always…. purposeful.

“I…” Akechi looks down at their hands. His fingers looked nice clasped around Akira’s. His nails were black and had a slight sheen.

“Okay,” he says against his better judgment. His stomach, again, did somersaults. Akira lowers himself to the ground and kneels in front of Akechi, hand in hand. He doesn’t say a word as he spreads Goro’s hand out and brushes top coat on his nails, making them shine.

Akechi’s head was spinning. His nails looked so clean and pretty. They were the opposite of him. Goro was dirty, impure, _ugly—_

His nails looked like Akira. Black hair matched black polish, neatness matched Akira’s personality and prettiness matched with… well, everything about Akira. Akira had long eyelashes, dainty features, light and dotted freckles speckled around his cheeks. His lips were nice and plump, probably soft despite the cracked nature. Akechi has figured out that Akira bites his lips when he’s nervous, similar to the way he twirls his hair. Akechi wouldn’t mind twirling Akira’s hair. Despite its unkempt nature, it fit Akira.

Akira said something again that Akechi didn’t catch. He was lost in thought, yet again. He had to stop doing that. Kurusu is staring at him expectantly, so he nods, unknownst to what Akira asked in the first place.

“Cool! I’ll set the game up. It’ll make time pass faster so we can get to bed sooner!” Akira grins excitedly, albeit hinting at his underlying tiredness.

Watching Akira scurry around and plug in the old TV and game set he bought, Akechi had a thought: _Akira’s hands are the prettiest thing I’ve ever seen._ He’s never been like this. He doesn’t think of anything as _pretty_. Beautiful, yes, but that word is reserved more for things, not _people_. Akira really has changed him, though he loathes to admit it.

The video game is a blur of spaceships, missiles, and bright colors. Akechi would probably be more interested in it if he wasn’t so tired. Constantly questioning himself and Akira’s actions gets tiring. Eventually, the game just becomes background noise. Akechi was too sleepy to bother worrying about his nails, the game, or how his head was rested on Akira’s shoulder.

The last thing he remembers is Akira brushing over his nails, stealing the game controller from his hands, and laying him down into bed. He remembers soft lips touch his forehead and one fleeting thought:

 

_Friends close, enemies closer._

**Author's Note:**

> what are honorifics i gave UP. i hope you guys like it and dont think its too bad!!!!!! also ive gotten glitter nail polish in my eye lmao im projecting my experiences onto akira


End file.
